'We don't want to use tech for the sake of it,' says expert in insightful webinar
When thinking about implementing new technology in a business, April Marcot, chief people officer at recruitment specialist McArthur, advised that HR teams should look at what the business needs.
“We need to start with an HR strategy and we need to understand what we are doing in HR and what the business needs,” Marcot said during a webinar.
The webinar, “Exploring the HR technology landscape: Leveraging the power of digital solutions for organisational success,” was hosted by McArther together with HR platform Enboarder. And it explored the impact of HR technology on an organisation’s strategy and financial performance.
As part of the first step in determining whether you need HR technology, Marcot highlighted the importance of asking many questions and listening to find out what the organisation’s needs are.
“It’s a case of talking to everybody that you possibly can, looking at all the numbers, looking for trends, understanding how we’re hiring people, how we’re losing people, why people are staying, how they are performing, what are they performing, what our culture looks like,” she said.
Approaching a new system
The next step Marcot advised was to be clear about what problem you’re trying to solve.
“What is it that we’re trying to achieve? What do our people need? What are our pain points?” she said. “And once you’ve identified those things, then you can start looking for tech that is actually going to solve the business problem that you’re trying to solve.”
Marcott reinforced the idea that HR teams need to start with idea that they have a problem to solve and how can technology facilitate that, rather than beginning with technology.
“We don’t want to use tech for the sake of it,” she said. “But obviously if it solves a problem or if it supports us in what we might be doing, or if it saves time or if it improves an experience, then that’s what we need to do.”
Getting c-suite buy-in
During the webinar, Enboarder’s director of marketing Gerardo Contreras highlighted research that shows what would make management more likely to approve a request for HR technology.
“Industry analysis, including Gartner… as well as many HR leaders around the world are seeing that business cases for HR tech that are tied to c-level executive main concerns – things like time saving and automation, employee connection and collaboration, retaining top talent,” he said. “These cases have a really good chance of getting a green light and actually getting approval.”
Marcot further reinforced these findings and said that when you identify the pain points, you should then describe what the solutions to those could be.
“If you come up with solutions to things that everybody agrees are pain points, the selling’s almost done for you,” she said. “If you come up with solutions to things that they don’t think are a problem, well then, you have a problem because they’re never going to want to invest in that.”
Find out more in the webinar Exploring the hr technology landscape: Leveraging the power of digital solutions for organisational success.
